state of the cabal (preprocessors)

[Malcolm Wallace]

Henrik Nilsson <nhn at Cs.Nott.AC.UK> writes:

> I believe a scheme like this would make it simpler to write code
> that works across different Haskell system even in cases where it is
> necessary to give special instructions to the compiler on a per-file
> basis. Specifically, such a scheme would
> 
>    * encourage the standardization of the syntax and semantics for
>      "important" command-line options

I think Simon was suggesting the pragma {-# LANGUAGE ... #-} for a
compiler-independent specification of the specific language extensions
required by a module - this could indeed be in a format derived from
Cabal.  However, in the meantime, {-# OPTIONS[-xHC] ... #-} already
exists, and is a less-rigorous means to the same end, since it
often uses stuff like "-cpp", "-ffi", "-puns", whatever, but
compiler-specific.

>    * reduce the needs for #ifdefs.

I don't see how the use of pragmas will directly reduce the need for
conditional imports.  Eventually, the libraries shipped with compilers
will converge sufficiently to reduce differences in imports, but that
is a separate issue.

>  >     {-# OPTIONS_COMPILE ... #-}
>  >     {-# OPTIONS_LINK ... #-}
> 
> Could you elaborate on this, please? E.g. through some examples.
> What kind of link options do you have in mind? Are they independent
> of the Haskell system and operating system, or might they depend
> on either or both?

I was thinking for instance of an FFI binding to an external library.
E.g.

    {-# OPTIONS_COMPILE `glib-config --cflags` #-}
    {-# OPTIONS_LINK    `glib-config --libs` #-}
    module Glib where ...

The idea was to help 'hmake'.  Only the binding module needs to know
about what extra linking options (e.g. -lglib -L/pkg/glib) are required,
yet when a program that /uses/ the module is built, we must still discover
these extra dependencies.

However, I am willing to be convinced that this extra mechanism is
unnecessary, especially in view of the more recent emergence of the
'package' mechanism, which can neatly encapsulate exactly this kind of
detail.

Regards,
    Malcolm